I'm trying to get a balance between info and Calloway's POV here in the opening section to the part of my WIP that's set in Virginia.
It's a fake place, analogous to Jamestown, and Fort Battery is being re-purposed as a slave auction for the (much worse) 2nd Middle Passage period of the Slave Trade. I've not made this clear as to me that's just the historical setting. I've chipped away at the 600-odd words to make them a touch over 300 and I wanted a quick acid-test for infodump. I'm wondering how deep a knowledge of slavery or the Civil War a reader would need, but I'm kind of hoping context would answer that. Does it?
Calloway is the POV (along with a Quaker) in this era, although Lázaro Rocha - essentially his new boss - is an MC in the overall story. The book will be well underway before this section, but I'm concerned that its introduction is a bit oh-he's-just-apprehensive-about-meeting-his-new-boss-where's-the-hook-y, as well.
Warning: Contains offensive racial terminology.
Thanks
pH
Calloway stared at the empty staging area of Fort Battery. The halved tree trunks forming the perimeter fence towered behind the platform, their points spearing the endless blue haze above. No one was going to get over those, but these fool n****** were tenacious and he’d not put it past them to start burrowing. After all, there were tales of the Volta ones living underground.
It wasn’t the slaves he was worried about, anyway; the new Administrator was an exacting son of a bitch who’d made demands on the layout of Fort Battery way before he was due to arrive. If the stories from Augusta were to be believed, the young ex-Union Captain was as likely to give him thirty strips just as much as the negroes. Not that he resented the appointment of the Administrator; he could do without the responsibility himself - the pleasure of flogging these animals had long worn off and now he just wished they’d behave - but since the law for the handling of human stock had been standardised, things were…what a dad-rat mess.
Maybe the change of scenery would calm them when they started arriving.
He laughed at the thought…
The breeze outside the barricade stirred up dust clouds that every now and then billowed over the top like a Springfield’s puff, but inside was calm as if the wind dare not blow over the land; even now, out in the open air atrium, as the site lay waiting for its administrator, staff and stock, a heavy pressure bore down on him.
A bad sign...
In a few hours he would know if the auction site passed muster. In a few hours he would fix his face and set his jaw. In a few hours he would meet Lázaro Rocha.
Damned stupid name, anyway.
It's a fake place, analogous to Jamestown, and Fort Battery is being re-purposed as a slave auction for the (much worse) 2nd Middle Passage period of the Slave Trade. I've not made this clear as to me that's just the historical setting. I've chipped away at the 600-odd words to make them a touch over 300 and I wanted a quick acid-test for infodump. I'm wondering how deep a knowledge of slavery or the Civil War a reader would need, but I'm kind of hoping context would answer that. Does it?
Calloway is the POV (along with a Quaker) in this era, although Lázaro Rocha - essentially his new boss - is an MC in the overall story. The book will be well underway before this section, but I'm concerned that its introduction is a bit oh-he's-just-apprehensive-about-meeting-his-new-boss-where's-the-hook-y, as well.
Warning: Contains offensive racial terminology.
Thanks
pH
Calloway stared at the empty staging area of Fort Battery. The halved tree trunks forming the perimeter fence towered behind the platform, their points spearing the endless blue haze above. No one was going to get over those, but these fool n****** were tenacious and he’d not put it past them to start burrowing. After all, there were tales of the Volta ones living underground.
It wasn’t the slaves he was worried about, anyway; the new Administrator was an exacting son of a bitch who’d made demands on the layout of Fort Battery way before he was due to arrive. If the stories from Augusta were to be believed, the young ex-Union Captain was as likely to give him thirty strips just as much as the negroes. Not that he resented the appointment of the Administrator; he could do without the responsibility himself - the pleasure of flogging these animals had long worn off and now he just wished they’d behave - but since the law for the handling of human stock had been standardised, things were…what a dad-rat mess.
Maybe the change of scenery would calm them when they started arriving.
He laughed at the thought…
The breeze outside the barricade stirred up dust clouds that every now and then billowed over the top like a Springfield’s puff, but inside was calm as if the wind dare not blow over the land; even now, out in the open air atrium, as the site lay waiting for its administrator, staff and stock, a heavy pressure bore down on him.
A bad sign...
In a few hours he would know if the auction site passed muster. In a few hours he would fix his face and set his jaw. In a few hours he would meet Lázaro Rocha.
Damned stupid name, anyway.
